The Pipers at the Interference Patterns of Dawn

The New Scientist asks the question on every hippy's lips: "Did other-worldly music inspire Stonehenge?"

I'm gonna take a punt on this one and go with "no". The idea that some Beaker People noticed interference patterns between two flautists playing the same note, and thought "we must mark this magical phenomenon. Let's run up the Marlborough Downs and drag all the sarsens down - and put a 50-ton stone wherever we find a dead spot. That's got to be easier than marking it out with paint." Did they do this?

Not an interference pattern

No. The answer's no. Just another in a long line of explanations for Stonehenge that don't hold water (unlike the uneven surface of the Altar Stone, which does. Although it's not an altar - it used to stand upright).

The interference pattern from two flautists would be symmetrical. Stonehenge's sarsen horseshoe is aligned on an axis, and vaguely symmetrical in one plane not two. There's no explanation for the bluestones' arrangements - a horseshoe and a circle, as well. There's no explanation for why the bluestones were being moved around - or why they went all the way to Prescelli to get them (yes, I know that there's a glacier theory, but they'd still have to move them, unless they happened to land in a circle and a horseshoe). It doesn't explain the Station Stones. It doesn't explain the Cursus, or Woodhenge or Durrington Walls or the Avenue or the solar alignment. Or the wombles. OK, I made up the wombles.

I notice that Steven Walker is an "archaeoacoustician". Now there's a creatively-named science if ever I heard one. No wonder he's independent. I'm going to give this 3.2 Goves on the plausibility scale. Which is just behind the aliens in likelihood, but ahead of the wombles.

Here's the only commentary on the sounds of Stonehenge I'd recommend:

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"What monstrous place is this?" said Angel.

"It hums," said she. "Hearken!"

He listened. The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp. No other sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or two, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure. It seemed to be of solid stone, without joint or moulding. Carrying his fingers onward he found that what he had come in contact with was a colossal rectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a similar one adjoining. At an indefinite height overhead something made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast architrave uniting the pillars horizontally. They carefully entered beneath and between; the surfaces echoed their soft rustle; but they seemed to be still out of doors. The place was roofless. Tess drew her breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said—

"What can it be?"

Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square and uncompromising as the first; beyond it another and another. The place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous architraves.

"A very Temple of the Winds," he said.

The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of monoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain. The couple advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in its midst.

"It is Stonehenge!" said Clare.

"The heathen temple, you mean?"

"Yes. Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles!"